Persephone
by Archer of Ecclesia
Summary: Another Char/John fic. Just read it and you'll get the title... Mild spoilers for Wind.


**A:N: Told you I gotta another Char/John fic! Have you ever faced a Persephone with Charlotte and it tries to suck Char's skirt up in its vacuum? I, for one, was nearly on the floor in tears while my mom looks at me like I'm having a seizure.**

** With me, you can only guess what I thought Johnathan was thinking, so I'm going to write it from his perspective. I'm female and I'm smart so I don't know how to write his language, but I'll attempt.**

** Story notes:**

** I bent the universe a bit, I just gave Charlotte a few more spells for the beginning of the game. Boo, hiss, I know I'm a terrible person. Same with Johnathan, a few early subweapons.**

** Charlotte and Johnathan don't know who Wind really is (**spoiler alert!**), Eric. So technically, they would call him Wind.**

** New book for Charlotte! **_**20,000 Leagues Under the Sea**_**! What happened was the kraken shot out and ate the monster's face off.**

** Disclaimer: don't own. Will never own. Konami will always own. Yack yack yack, read the story. I also don't own **_**20,000 Leagues**_**, and dang, would that be cool to have as a weapon.**

The halls of Castlevania were vast, echoing with the sounds of the monsters as they communicated. An exceedingly rare creature, a Glasya Labolas, a winged, green bulldog, was sniffing around, amiss the chaos of the other monsters.

A mimic told him that a rumor had it that there had been a human infiltration, and the enormous hound was sniffing around for clues.

His companion, a trigger-happy lerajie, was walking briskly, perfect posture and her rifle resting on her left shoulder. She kept at an even pace, snapping back into her shooting position when an imp squeaked off in the distance.

The Labolas growled, its own way of telling her to calm down. There couldn't be humans in Castlevania; the last one had been a man – a Morris, Dracula said – and he had died off long ago with something that barely classified as a struggle.

But the rumor having it was that there were two juvenile humans running around, one of them a female. The Labolas snorted. Some monsters were just plain stupid –

"I see you!" Lerajie shouted in her gravely voice. With a quick clicking sound, she had shot off her ricochet rock, which bounced off a pillar, flew backwards above the head of the Labolas, and as he turned to see the unlucky friend of his that had been shot, a sharp pain flew through his left jowl.

With a snarl of fury, he whipped around to snap at the lerajie, but another pain pierced through the thick hide of his back.

He felt his backbone arc upwards, and as he twisted the front part of his body to take off the head of a rival, he saw something...

A human. A young human, clad in a blue overcoat and a white skirt, the two combining to form an informally short skirt. She had a book in her hand, and with another swing from the thick tome, a burst of tentacles shot out from between the pages. The creature had no visual of her lower half before the wolf's head was in a beak of some sort.

From a distance, the skittish lerajie was fumbling as the tried to reload her rifle, witnessing her partner's face being chewed off by a giant squid that popped out of the leather-back book.

Her ricochet rock finally loaded into her gun, the lerajie took aim, but before her finger could pull the trigger, something wrapped around her wrist and she was jerked backwards.

Landing on the ground with a grunt, the timid demon opened her eyes just a fraction to see a human, similar to the one fighting her friend, only taller and male, standing above her.

The last thing she saw was a boot coming down to crush her face in.

The monster's conqueror, Johnathan Morris, quickly took his boot out of the brain stew with a disgusted grunt, yet soon shook the look off his face and rushed over to help Charlotte.

The Nebula Whip was in his hands, namely because the legendary Vampire Killer was nothing more than an ordinary whip to him at the moment. He was a Morris, after all, not a Belmont. So the Nebula was his second choice, because of the long range and high power.

The slayer brought his arm back, slung it forward, and flicked his wrist, sending the Nebula into an enchanted flight, the magical whip seeking out the blood of the evil being, and the long chain bound itself around the bulldog's neck.

With a simple tug backwards, Johnathan recalled the Nebula, shredding the skin of the Labolas in the process. Blood dripped onto the granite floors, the monster's head hanging on by only a few blood vessels, and possibly the spine. Though the slayer wasn't about to go poking through the dog's remains to see if his new whip was strong enough to serrate its way through bone.

Besides, moments later, the bulldog sucked in a sharp breath, turned to stone as if a yellow Medusa head had just touched him, and crumpled into nothing but dust before their eyes.

"Nice work, Char," the blonde man brushed his sweaty bangs out of his face. The two had just recently reached this part of the castle, so naturally, they were training extensively.

"Watch it," she hissed, her sharp tongue pinning her hated nickname in the air.

Johnathan shifted uncomfortably; there were no monsters for him to run off and murder to try and impress Charlotte, a child from the Aulin family, and the most beautiful girl in the world.

The spell-binder, however, was perfectly at home as she surveyed the corpse of the huge, lupine being. "Greenish skin, turns to stone when dead..."

For a few seconds afterward, she was leafing through the back of her enormous book; she always kept a few pieces of parchment and a pen back there for when they ran into new monsters. With determination, the sorceress jotted down a few notes on the being and its... odd... death.

"Alright, it appears that was something known as a Glasya Labolas. Wind says we're looking for something called a..." Charlotte began to search through the many scrolls jammed into the back of an old book. The Morris found himself becoming entranced once more...

And then, Charlotte hit him in the arm with her tome.

Johnathan was confused. One second, he had been unable to take his eyes of the witch, and the next, he was being yelled at. "What'd I do?"

"I said, you told me to go after the wrong enemy! Learn how to hear something the first time, you ding-dong!" Charlotte screeched.

_How cute she looks when she's angry_... Johnathan thought to himself. Though he quickly shook himself from his daze, then nodded. "Okay, what'll we go after next?"

Charlotte sighed. "For the last time, it's called a Final Knight. It will range from fifteen to twenty feet in height, around six feet for the circumference, have a golden skull missing its mandible adorning the bosom, a crest that signifies his eternal gratitude for–" Charlotte paused mid-rant to glance at her partner's face.

"In English?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Charlotte snickered. "It's fun being the smart one, you know..." her expression of playfulness (unfortunately) dropped, and a monotoned look of annoyance replaced her sparkling eyes. "For you, Johnathan, it will be a big red thingy resembling a human and carry a big thing that you swing called a sword. Simple enough?"

The Morris nodded, but after a brief pause, retorted to the girl's sarcasm. "I know what a sword is, thank you!"

"When I said 'claymore' earlier _today_ you made me talk stupid to you! You wouldn't know a cutlass from a rapier if the answer hit you where your brain was supposed to be!" The Aulin's temper was beginning to explode. Johnathan could read that much from her face.

He said nothing more. He never wished to hurt or annoy her in any way, but... he couldn't help himself, the same way a little boy couldn't help himself from pushing a girl on the playground because he liked her.

In a huff, Charlotte pushed passed him, and the blonde froze upon contact with her. However, he soon recovered from his tizzy, shaking his head, causing his blonde hair to fly to and fro.

"Hey, Char! Is that one of those knights?" Johnathan asked only after a few minutes.

Though aggravated, Charlotte looked down the looming hallway; surely enough, there was an enormous red-armored being, carrying an equally-proportioned sword in its iron fist. "Yes, it is! Kill it!"

The vampire hunter's will to impress Charlotte won over her impressive Speed Up spell, which she was still casting by the time Johnathan had tossed a large shuriken at the beast. The sharp projectile flew through the folds in the armor between the neck and the head, the beast staggering backwards.

"Ha!" Johnathan's victory cry came early, as the knight recovered from his stumble without so much as a flailing hand to cease his fall.

"First rule of fighting anything that has the word 'Final' in it, genius. It's going to be strong and armored, so don't expect to take it down in one hit," Charlotte said, a hint of pride in her voice. "On the other hand, a decent spell-caster such as myself could help you take this thing down."

Out of the blue, Charlotte's gentle, soft, and strangely _warm_ hand had seized Johnathan's. He had previously been about to launch a hail of knives at the monster who was beginning to approach them, though it moved slower than anything.

Johnathan turned to her; stared at her face for a moment, a blush on his face. She had been looking directly ahead and hadn't noticed how terribly she was distracting her partner in crime, but as the beast drew nearer and nothing happened, she snapped her head to the side, causing the man to jump several feet out of his skin.

"What are you doing? Help me!" she hissed.

"Oh! Duh! Sorry. Maybe I really am that stupid," he mumbled the last sentence under his breath and prayed that Charlotte wouldn't hear, even though she evidently heard something.

With one fluid motion that had to come out of nothing but several hours of practice, the two swung their conjoined appendages into the air like a pair of dancers preforming a move. They simultaneously shouted, "Meteor Strike!"

The Final Knight was nearing them as the marble room began to heat up. Or was that Johnathan's face?

The beauty was still holding onto his hand tightly and he began to sweat. Did she truly?...

Charlotte was still holding onto his hand, and she was seemingly growing closer to him.

The meteor soon began to melt out of the top of the ceiling, growing closer to the Final Knight as it slowly lumbered after the two slayers.

In a flash of light, the giant rock had melted away, leaving the long hallway as blank as it was before.

"Was that it?" The Morris asked. "Expected a bit more for something so big."

"Ditto," Charlotte murmured. "Come on, let's go find Wind."

Johnathan winced as the young lady worthy of being a succubus took her hand from his. "Come on, are you waiting for the zombies to start respawning around here?"

He shook his head, discreetly wiping the corner of his mouth, aware that a little trickle of drool might have _possibly_ wormed its way out.

The two continued the trip towards the nearest warp portal in complete silence, other than the echoing of their footsteps and Charlotte's grunt of disapproval when Johnathan tried to wander off, convinced he was going to somehow manage to kill a pack of skeleton muskets on his own.

Charlotte was hovering unusually close to Johnathan. Never before had he seen her so on edge; it was lamost as if she was afraid.

Yet the Morris snorted at that thought. Charlotte was too stubborn for fear.

Only when the couple... (partners! Johnathan bit his tongue, the two were just partners that were coincidentally friends assigned to work on the same case)... reached the room outside of the first of the Great Stairways did something... interesting... happen.

Normally, only Charlotte was excited when they ran into a new breed of enemy, unless it was a foe worthy of being part of Johnathan's show to win over Charlotte.

Yet this particular enemy was something that... awakened him.

The enemy they encountered was a maid. One of Dracula's prissy little French maids, complete with the skimpy one-piece outfits and high-heels, along with a skull vacuum. The creature was taking a break of vacuuming and was wiping off a smudge of blood on one of the great pillars, not disturbed by the gore in the least.

He approached the it with a determined glint in his eye; how hard could it be to take down a ninety-pound muscleless–

That was when he was docked across the face – and hard, mind you – with those high-heels that could pop someone's eyeball out if they were kicked in the cheek at the right angle they were so long.

The slayer flew backwards and landed on his tailbone, sending a jolt up his spine. He had officially sunken to an all-time low. Beat up by a demon from the brothel in hell. How attractive.

Johnathan flew upwards, gripping the handle of his Nebula. With a quick flick of his wrist and sleight of hand, the maid's stomach was bandaged with a holy weapon that was burning away her skin, which began to smoke in response to something holy.

The creature was dead within an instant. He turned, trying to locate Charlotte.

He found her...

His face exploded into a red that was almost brighter than his tailcoat. Note the word almost.

Charlotte had obviously been fighting another one of these prissied-up ninjas, only this one was trying to suck up Charlotte into the demonic cleaning utensil.

Though Johnathan normally would have rushed over to help his female friend, he saw her skirt fly upwards, riding up halfway to her stomach, her slim body and very small undergarment visible.

She covered herself using her book with a slight shriek, then turned to face the monster.

She fed the demon to her pet squid a few moments later. She seemed to have fully recovered from the incident. Though as she turned around, she froze.

At first, she only stood at him, wide-eyed. Then her face mirrored the hue of his.

For a moment, the two only stood in the hallway, staring at eachother. Then Charlotte shook herself clear of the trance, and (with the aid of her Speed Up spell, Johnathan bet his lance on that) she was standing before him when he closed his eyes barely long enough to be considered a blink. "You are never to speak of this again, you got that, Morris?"

Johnathan only nodded, his face still unable to recover.

She twisted around and began to trek for the warp room once more. She only went a few feet before she turned around and planted a quick kiss on his cheek, and then she strode off, her dignified posture resumed.

Johnathan blushed into an even darker shade. He gently touched his hand – which still had its Nebula glued into it – to his cheek, which he would never wash again (despite was Charlotte said, he did bathe).

OooOoOoOoOo

Wind met the two in their normal rendezvous point. The two seemed excited, to a certain degree and in a certain way. The twosome said they had found one of those giant knights and slain it, signifying that they had passed through the Great Stairway.

The moment the ghost had told them their next assignment, the two disappeared into the shop behind him without so much as another word.

"They've met Persephone, alright," Wind smirked to himself.

A few minutes later, Charlotte and Johnathan brushed by him, flying out into the castle's innermost rooms for their next assignment, which was to kill a few hill guards and bring back their heads.

Wind had given them this task to get them out of the entryway for a while.

"How much you wanna bet, Vince?" Wind hollered over his shoulder. "Three hours or four?"

Vincent snorted. "I already won, I'm afraid. Didn't you see them?"

Wind sighed, pulling a golden coin out of his pocket.

The two had been holding hands, so Vincent (the gambler...) won once more.

**A:N: Done. I love this couple, as if have said before. And PoR, like the other DS games and SotN, have so much character depth and humor added in that I love the series. This isn't the last of the Castlevania fics you'll see** **me, I promise. **It'll just be a while...

**Bye-bye, my lovelies. Love you all so much!**


End file.
